Research Findings
The CULTURAGING project aims to address the significant yet understudied social and cultural consequences of population aging. By developing theoretical models and conducting empirical analyses, the project seeks to explore how aging affects key societal outcomes, including government spending priorities, immigration flows, political attitudes, and gender inequality. Through a combination of macro-level and individual-level data, the research will investigate the underlying mechanisms driving these changes. Ultimately, the goal is to provide a comprehensive understanding of how aging societies shape social dynamics, with findings that will inform more effective and targeted policy responses.
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Below you can find our completed projects and our work in progress.
Population Ageing, Economic Growth and the
Composition of Government Expenditure
This paper examines the impact of population ageing on economic growth through its effect on the composition of government expenditure. We develop and test a theoretical
model where population ageing gives rise to an older median voter. Under majority voting, this affects the composition of government expenditure: spending on the elderly increases whereas productive expenditure remains unchanged. The former crowds out private investments and reduces the economy’s growth rate. The empirical analysis supports the key predictions of the model. We exploit data from the OECD over the 2007-2018 period and establish using OLS and IV regression analyses that population ageing has a positive and significant effect on elderly spending categories like “old age” and “hospital services.” In line with the model, it has no sizable impact on productive spending categories such as “tertiary education”, “transport”, “mining, manufacturing and construction” and “R&D General public services.” For a larger baseline sample of 178 countries we employ GMM analyses and find a negative and significant effect of elderly spending on economic growth.
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Link to the working paper here.
Population Ageing and the Environment: A Comparative Study of Nature-Concerning and Action-Requiring Outcomes
In this paper we study an under-explored implication of population ageing, i. e., its effect on environmental outcomes and environment-related individual attitudes. In doing so we propose a novel classification of environmental variables, namely action-requiring and nature-concerning. The borderline difference between those two types lies in the level of civil engagement required to fulfill them. Using data on a panel of countries over the 1995-2018 period, our findings reveal that whilst population
ageing has a pro-ecological impact on nature-concerning environmental outcomes, it has no clear effect on action-requiring counterparts. Similarly, employing survey data from 2005 to 2016, we also demonstrate that that there is a negative and statistically significant relationship between population ageing and respondents’ engagement for the environment. Furthermore, we find that subjective importance of the environment is positively associated with individual ageing.
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Link to the working paper here.
Population Ageing and the Rise of Populism in Europe
This paper identifies population aging as a key driver of populism using multilevel regression analysis on individuals from European countries between 2002 and 2019. Unlike individual aging, we focus on the effect of population aging, measured by the old-age dependency ratio (OADR). Using data from nine rounds of the European Social Survey, we examine the relationship between population aging and populist attitudes, captured through voting for populist parties, political trust, and immigration attitudes. Our findings suggest that population aging is associated with declining electoral turnout, higher support for populist parties, lower trust in political institutions, and increased anti-immigrant sentiment. These effects emerge across both younger and older voters, suggesting that aging societies shape attitudes beyond individual aging. These effects can operate through mechanisms such as economic insecurity, cultural backlash, or shifting societal priorities in aging populations.
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Link to the working paper here.
Societal Ageing and Attitudes towards Women in the Labor Market: Evidence from European Countries
This paper examines the relationship between societal aging and attitudes toward women in the labor market. We hypothesize that, up to a certain point, these attitudes are more favorable as societies grow ”older”. In these societies, people may better recognize that an increase in female labor force participation can help mitigate the challenges that societal aging imposes on the welfare state. To test this hypothesis, we conduct a multilevel analysis of individuals from 25 European OECD countries between 2004 and 2017, using the Old Age Dependency Ratio (OADR) as a proxy for societal aging and gender-related questions from the European Social Survey (ESS). Our findings reveal a hump-shaped relationship between societal aging and attitudes towards women in the labor market. In the early stages of demographic change, particularly in countries with rising OADR, positive attitudes can be attributed to the recognition that an aging population necessitates a larger working-age population, making women a logical resource for expansion, thus fostering more favorable norms. However, as societal aging progresses further, conservative views associated with older populations begin to dominate, leading to a deterioration in gender norms.
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The paper is published at the Economics Bulletin, ​link to the publication here.
The Implications of Population Aging for Immigrant- and Gender-Related Attitudes
Ageing populations pose some of the foremost global challenges of this century. Drawing on an international pool of scholars, this cutting-edge Handbook surveys the micro, macro and institutional aspects of the economics of ageing.
Structured in seven parts, the volume addresses a broad range of themes, including health economics, labour economics, pensions and social security, generational accounting, wealth inequality and regional perspectives. Each chapter combines a succinct overview of the state of current research with a sketch of a promising future research agenda.
This Handbook will be an essential resource for advanced students, researchers and policymakers looking at the economics of ageing across the disciplines of economics, demography, public policy, public health and beyond.
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Link to the publication here.
